Darkspear Autumn
by NotQuittingMyDayJob
Summary: The life’s story of a Darkspear troll and his adventures in a world that is passing him by. Note: This tale begins about 20 years before the blood elves joined the Horde. The loa referenced are partially WoW canon and partially character created.
1. Chapter 1

GROWING UP

Early in my childhood I learned that life was cruel. Maybe it was the stories my tribal elders told about Loa Dambala stealing men's spirit-souls just to torment their families and friends, a game he played to amuse his sibling gods. Or maybe it was watching whole bands of war-painted hunters walk off into the jungle to find and be killed by viscous legendary beasts, thus becoming part of legend themselves until they too were forgotten. Troll history is built on tales of war and sacrifice, betrayal, and voodoo. My history is no different.

The island on which I was born was part of an archipelago, a long chain of tropical stepping-stones stretching away from what is now called the Eastern Kingdoms. Most of my early memories are of the water — fishing, swimming, playing around in boats. I recall endless days spent wrestling in the shallows with my fellow tuskers, ever watchful for sharks and other dangers among the coral. News of children disappearing below the waves was not uncommon, and it was not treated as tragic but simply as a case of Loa Ixnextli, the Giver of Life-Blood, sating her thirst and humbling her children.

My family had a modest hut near the center of our village, which makes me think that we were somewhat respected. Those of lower standing were pushed to the outer rim, where their homes would be swept away by violent sea storms. None were saddened when this happened. It was simply the way of things. Our tribe would give these families what tools and materials they needed to rebuild. No one in our village went homeless or hungry unless they became truly wicked. Usually my people would account this to a dark hex or possession by a foul spirit, and the trolls in question would be put to the knife.

Like most trolls, we were fiercely proud of our roots. Our tribe was Darkspear, once part of the mighty Gurubashi Empire, which had fractured when the Atal'ai summoned the demon-god Hakkar into the world. Our ancestors had been driven from the mainland in the ensuing civil war and had started life anew as island dwellers. While this all came to pass many thousands of years ago, my people have always taken great pleasure in our tribe's tenacity, so much so that they chose to stay behind when the other Darkspears were finally driven across the ocean by the Sea Witch and her accursed murlocs not so long ago.

I have of course met many of my estranged "cousins" during my life, and many of them I hold in high regard. Yet I also find that a troubling number of the Darkspear trolls now in Thrall's Horde know little of the ways of their ancestors. And what is worse, they do not care. It always amazes me that these trolls mistake caring about their traditions as being shackled by them, while they so easily accept the rule of a pig-headed outsider.

I wish I could share more detail about my early days, but before I had even reached the age of six, things changed forever. What I recall now, looking back, are vague memories: The warm embrace of my mother and the stern hand of my father. Ceaseless fights for dominance among the adults, sometimes secret, sometimes flagrant. Dangerous forays into the jungle and far out to sea. Evening bonfires with storytelling and drums. And (always) chores, from mending fishing nets to collecting firewood to diving for clams.

Still today many people view trolls as nothing more than savages. I cannot deny that this is part of who we are, but it is not all that we are. Our fishing and hunting was done at sunrise or sunset, usually lasting no more than a few hours. The rest of our time was spent enjoying games and contests, studying old scrolls, or cultivating the arts — singing, dancing, sculpting, practicing voodoo. People forget that long before the elves, we trolls had vast empires touching every sea, our golden pyramids beacons of promise in a primitive world.

* * * * *

There is one clear memory that I have of my island life, and it begins with a childhood rite of passage. A large stone wall on our eastern beach fascinated us tuskers, and had for generations. Reaching the height of three adult trolls, it ran out of the jungle and stopped abruptly after traveling some distance into the ocean. Perhaps it was an ancient seawall for berthing Gurubashi warships. Or as we children liked to believe, maybe it was a place for the bravest warriors to fight one another where they could be watched from far around.

Whatever the wall was, the tradition became for youngsters who were brave enough to climb to its top and try to push each other off. Whoever was left standing would run to the end of the wall and jump some thirty feet to the water below, then swim back to shore having "earned their tusks." There was no quarter given for age or gender; all were free to take part and face the consequences. On the day of my first contest, I climbed onto the wall from where it began under the tree line and smiled recklessly down at my friends. They were too frightened to take part.

I made it nearly halfway down the length of the wall with the group of older kids chasing after me. I had surprised them by not fighting, but rather running flat-out to the far end. It was then that I saw the tall ship out at sea. It had already turned side-to our village and had dropped several launches into the water, the armed men in the smaller boats pulling hard for shore. As I began to slow my run, the cannons belched flame and smoke, and an eruption unlike anything I had ever heard blasted away the morning calm of my village. So strange was the scene that I didn't react when an older boy stuck me from behind and I flew off the wall, landing with a bone-jarring thud at its base.

All these years later, I wish I could remember the name of the boy, because he saved my life that day. I did not know what had happened to the other tuskers when I finally awoke some time later. All I knew was that I had been left alone where I had fallen in the sand on the side of the wall opposite my village, hidden from view. My right arm hung limply at my side, either broken or dislocated at the shoulder. I picked myself up and headed for home, wincing in pain and cradling my useless arm.

As I stood in the middle of the burned-out shells of our huts, many still seeping black tendrils of smoke, I discovered a lone troll man who had walked out of the jungle soon after the attack had ended. Whether he had been hiding or was just far from the village when the pink-skins struck, I do not know. With his spear he was helping to send the dying to Akumea, where they would face their final judgment before Ixnextli. None survived the attack that morning except for him and me. I saw the bodies of the children I had been with a few hours earlier, now dead, never to earn their tusks in this world.

By the time the other troll tried to put me in a canoe and get us off the island, I was in a stupor. But when his arms grabbed mine, I fell into a beast-like frenzy. My body trembled. My spirit-soul raged. I do not remember entering the canoe; I think the man was forced to drag me kicking and screaming. Going so suddenly from normal island boy to orphaned refugee was very odd, and it had happened in the blinking of an eye. The world-shattering abruptness of this change, and my drastic reaction to it, would be a pattern that would stay with me for much of my life.


	2. Chapter 2

AFLOAT

Having been born and raised on an island, my new guardian and I did not have to struggle to survive at sea. We were comfortable in our wanderings. For a while anyway. We traveled eastward toward the end of the archipelago, paddling between the islands at night to stay out of the hot sun and avoid the ship that had destroyed our village. We were able to gather more than enough provisions during our idle daytime hours.

However, with each stopover on land, I found myself growing more and more restless. What if the "freebooters" — that is what my guardian called them — found us as we hunted for fresh water among the rocks, or dozed under the trees at noon? We would always drag our canoe far ashore and hide our passing by dragging a palm branch over our footsteps. We did not light any cooking fires, instead eating our fish and fruits raw so as not to attract attention with smoke. We used hand signals rather than speaking aloud. It was tedious.

While land became a place of danger and irritation for me, the sea became a healer. At night we would crisscross the calm water under a bright blanket of stars. Rappa, my guardian, passed the time by quietly singing songs and telling stories about our ancestors and the loa. I refused to speak to him for the first few days, somehow blaming him for what had befallen us. But as time went by it seemed that a peaceful aura would descend with nightfall, and my guardian and I began to open up to one another.

I learned that Rappa had been a hunter-priest of our people, which interested me. My own father had been a boat builder and a man of little faith. Among other things, my guardian told me how Loa Ixnextli had created the twinkling Night Rainbow in honor of her mother, Aida-Wedo, by flinging the teeth of her defeated foes into the black heavens. He explained to me that, like it or not, we were now under the care of Agwe, destined to live or die depending on His moods and tides. After asking Rappa all he knew about the Sovereign of the Seas and learning of the god's volatile nature, I did not dare to grumble about our situation.

I also learned that Rappa had been far away in the jungle on a vision quest during the pirate attack on our village, and this is why he was not killed with the rest of our people. Our chief had commanded him to take the potion that caused prophetic dreams, and though it greatly weakened Rappa mentally and physically, he could not refuse. The chief's newest and youngest wife had become pregnant, you see, and the old troll wished to know if she would give him a son to carry on the nearly dried-up bloodline.

Instead, Rappa saw in his hallucinations the death of our entire tribe at the hands of pink-skinned men that lived in a massive floating house that spewed fire and metal. This part of his prophecy, we both understood, had come to pass. But Rappa told me that he had also seen a vision that revealed a thousand green-and-gold banners topping a thousand huts in which lived a thousand jungle frogs. The huts stretched along a sandy beach that was familiar yet different from any that he had ever seen before.

Rappa believed that the dream referred to our Darkspear cousins, who had crossed the sea years before and who were destined to flourish on new shores. From that point on we both knew that it was now our quest to find and join these trolls, Agwe willing.

* * * * *

By this time we had been paddling up the island chain for several weeks, farther than either of us had ever been. In truth, it was farther than either of us had ever heard of anyone from our tribe traveling before. Our island and the waters around it had always provided enough sustenance for all of our people, so few felt the need to explore beyond our closest neighboring landmasses. We had been happy, and ignorant, in our isolation.

Unbeknownst to Rappa and me, we were now approaching the far edge of a large barrier reef that bordered the mainland to the east. It was called the Vile Reef, and later in my life I would come to know this name in a very intimate way, because I would experience many great and terrible things upon its borders. But at the time we knew only that our lonesome journey had come to an end because we began to see other boats plying the waters, some of them small canoes like ours and others the lumbering winged ships like those of the pirates who had destroyed our village.

We kept to ourselves until one day we spotted a fishing boat nearby that was manned by several trolls who were singing and joking while hauling their nets in the pre-dawn light. Encouraged by their manner, we paddled over to them and asked if they had come from the Darkspear village. They all looked at each other and laughed until one of them, a troll named Dagoo, told us that we were headed in the wrong direction. There was still an entire ocean dividing us from our cousins!

Seeing our disappointment, the trolls, most of whom we discovered to also be from one broken tribe or another, invited us to return with them to their mother ship. They explained that they were all deck hands on a merchant vessel that sailed between the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, the land where the Darkspear had finally settled. They were in the process of provisioning their ship before heading out on a three-year voyage that would take them not too far from the Echo Isles and Sen'jin, the new home of the Darkspear tribe.

Though Rappa and I had no real experience on large sailing vessels, the other trolls assured us that they could find jobs for us on board the merchant ship. It turned out that followers of Agwe were always a welcome boon on a long voyage. And, the sailors teased, the captain would no doubt enjoy having a young cabin boy to abuse and run his errands for him. So began my life at sea.


	3. Chapter 3

RESCUE AT SEA

It was a year or more before we began our passage of the Great Sea en route to Kalimdor. In that time Rappa and I learned the ropes as sailors while our ship, called _Crosser_, skirted the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms to the southern tip and back. We stopped in numerous trading towns on the mainland, including one large and bustling port named Booty Bay. But my guardian and I were not allowed off the ship. Since we had proven our worth, we were treated more like servants than crewmembers.

However, I found my time aboard _Crosser_ not to be slavish at all. The days were long and the work backbreaking, true, but for a quickly growing tusker it was a wonderful world of ever-changing experiences and backdrops. Once I proved that I could stand on my own two feet, I was given tasks to do, the simplest being to make the captain's bed every day. Then I was given the job of setting the captain's table before mealtimes. Soon I was cleaning the top decks and hauling sails. I used to love to climb up to the crow's nest and spy rocks in the shallows. I would swing among the spars like a jungle monkey. But there was little chance of skiving off, and if I had done so, the captain would have been after me.

I was the only child on board, so I quickly became "little bruddah" to all. From the other trolls I learned fighting and swordplay, as well as how and when to hide from the captain's ire. Our leader was a beast of a troll, an Amani as I would discover, and he did not spare the lash on any of the crew when showing his displeasure. But this was simply a normal part of life at sea — serene one moment and severe the next. Take the squalls, for example. When they hit us it was often with only a few minute's warning. They would roll across the horizon and we would be thrashed about like a gnome in a boiling cauldron.  
Then there would be day upon day of still winds and idleness. In these hours I would sit with Rappa or Dagoo, who became like an uncle to me, and we would whittle or practice knots. The ship also had a library of scrolls, most of them written by past captains about the various places and peoples they had encountered. In the evenings Rappa would teach me to read using them. By this time I was about eight seasons old and my tusks had grown in, so like the rest of the crew I began to carve scrimshaw into them: archaic glyphs that I had learned in the old scrolls, along with elaborate scenes of marine animals and fish.

From the crew I also learned about the pleasures of the flesh and drinking. During each stopover at a trading town, while the captain was off bartering for goods, the crew would sneak aboard a willing female. It was not long before, cackling deviously, they got hold of me. Virtuous Rappa refused to participate, but he did not stop the others from dragging me down into the hold to watch them "edutain" their guest. Here, they would drink rum and carouse like only trolls can. I do not deny taking part in the proceedings once or twice, but before too long I discovered the dark side of alcohol and its consuming ways. Today I rarely touch the stuff.

As for the women, let us just say that I was not as interested in them at that tender age as I would be later in my life. I began to skip the crude parties and instead stayed with Rappa in our room, which was really a small storage bay separate from the main crew quarters. It is likely we were given this berth because the captain was being cautious upon inviting us aboard. But in hindsight, it was a welcome retreat where Rappa could continue my education in privacy. He told me of blood rites and voodoo, showed me how to write the words of power, and taught me the simplest priestly spells.

Late one night a few weeks after _Crosser_ had finally started its voyage across the Great Sea, as Rappa and I dozed before our nightly watch, the relative quiet of the ship was pierced by a scream. It echoed through the maze of bulwarks and hatches within the vessel's wood guts. I shot upright in my hammock and looked across the small room to where my guardian lay. "What wuz dat noise?" I asked anxiously. Rappa was already awake. He was a deadly protector as well as a faithful mentor.

"Prolleh dat knuckle-head Dagoo drunk agin. I go an' find out," Rappa huffed, hopping to the floor with a dagger in hand. I could hear footsteps in the companionway outside, other troll sailors rushing to the main deck. The sharp sound of steel on steel began to ring in the air, and then pandemonium broke loose. Gunshots and explosions, battle cries and screams. "Pirates! Yah bolt dah door behind me," barked my guardian, turning quickly to go. Looking back over his shoulder, he said reassuringly, "Yah gwanna be safe. Agwe watchin' over yah." And then he was gone. "Wait..." I yelped weakly. It was the last time he ever saw Rappa alive.

* * * * *

As far as I can figure I was a slave aboard the pirate ship for the next five or more years. I will not go into great detail on my captivity because it is not a very interesting or fond story for me to tell. Quite simply, I was the lowest form of life on the boat, below even the pigs the crew sometimes picked up from attacks on other trading vessels. I would collapse into bed at the end of each day in a state of complete exhaustion from all the work I was forced to do. I was routinely ridiculed, beaten, and spat upon. And that was not the worst of it.

I have since heard others say that there is no shame for those in captivity to do whatever is necessary to stay alive. I hope this is true. If not, I will carry much shame with me to Akumea upon my passing from this world. Yet I would not wish for the readers of this journal to think that I seek sympathy, or that I regret my past. No, those are weak sentiments for pink-skins and fools. While some who know my story say that I have led a hard life, to me it is the only life I know and is not hard or soft or otherwise. My past has led me to where I am today. That is all.

The ship that became my prison for half a decade was crewed almost entirely by humans, with the rare dwarf or filthy elf thrown in. I did not take close notice of the pirates other than the few who were my keepers. Through them I learned that the ocean-going brigands called themselves the Southsea Freebooters. While this very name stoked hot feelings of revenge within me, I could do nothing at the time. All my thoughts and actions were exhausted in working hard so that I might continue to live another day; that and questioning the sea god who seemed to have cursed me.

Over the years I had to dwell on my fate, I began to close my spirit-soul to Agwe. I came to believe that He had forsaken me. And so I had forsaken Him. Then one day I noticed a member of the crew that I had not seen before, a troll who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. We had not been ashore recently, and we had not captured any other ships. One day he was just there. I caught him watching me on more than one occasion. I was curious yet unnerved by his presence. The other pirates did not seem to pay him any mind. Never once did I see him acknowledge the least of them, nor them him.

Not many nights after sighting the strange troll, as the usual drinking and roughhousing wore on topsides, I saw a dark figure descend the ladder and entered the brig in the belly of the ship, where I was kept when not working. The noise from above made sleep impossible, and I was almost glad for something to divert my attention. Almost. I grew nervous as I watched the figure whisper to my guard. Maybe the captain had decided that I was growing too strong and that it was time to end my service. I steeled myself for whatever might come as I was called to the front of my cell, for I had vowed never to fall to my captors without a fight.

What happened next took place so quickly that I still question how (and why) it occurred. While I looked out through the cell door a long-bladed knife, oiled so as to give no reflection, slid out from the shadows of the visitor's cloak and deftly cut the guard's throat. Sidestepping as the dying human fell forward into the bars of my cage, I again glanced up just in time to see the same knife's hilt as it struck my forehead. Through a dizzying haze, I recall being hauled from my prison by the scruff of my shirt and covered with a cloak by strong hands. "Yah enslavement is ovah, mah brudda," I heard before succumbing to the warm blanket of unconsciousness.

I awoke to find myself in a foreign setting, a place of firm ground and clean, sweet smells. I tried to sit up and wobbled, my head spinning and my stomach lurching. "That will pass as yah become adjusted tah land agin," said a troll voice from several yards away. "Dis be yah new home." I glanced around through narrowed eyes and saw stilted huts near a beach, trolls walking freely about the village. "Dat be Sen'jin. Yah go der. Grow up strong, proud," commanded the voice. "Yah be Darkspear, an' even if we no from dah same tribe, troll look out fah troll. Dat what Fathah Oshun say." I heard the retreat of footsteps and then nothing save the sound of the waves lapping gently onto the beach.

Tears began to fall down my cheeks as I realized that I was once more a free troll and that Agwe, Father Ocean, had been watching over me all along.


	4. Chapter 4

FINDING FAMILY

Sitting back down at this journal once more, it strikes me that I have been away for quite some time. Like the animal frenzies that I suffered from in my younger years, long and frequent wanderings have beset me for much of my life. But I do not wish to get ahead of myself. We will talk more about my walkabouts later. For now, on with my story.

The loa had smiled on me. My shackles had been loosed, and I had found my way to my Darkspear descendents in Kalimdor. Still it shames me to admit that I was scared and did not know what to do with myself. For so long I had been a seeker and a slave that the notion of "tribe" had become foreign to me, even frightening. Would they accept me as a long-lost cousin or treat me as an outcast? I did not know. So I began my new days of freedom by doing the same thing I have always done. Surviving.

I took to the bush of the Echo Isles. The surroundings were comforting, reminiscent of my old island home. Emerald rainforest. Jagged, rocky outcroppings. Palm-fringed shores. Fish seemed to leap from the reef into my hungry hands. There were raptor nests to deprive of eggs and plenty of fruit trees from which to forage. Occasionally I would see other trolls. In fact I discovered a large group of them living on the biggest of the islands. They appeared to be a hostile offshoot of the main tribe, led by a dark voodoo priest in a reign of terror. I stayed away from them.

But as the weeks passed I became more curious about the trolls on the mainland, who seemed far less threatening. I would swim to their village at night and watch them through the open windows of their huts. Their frequent laughter and singing must have had a disarming effect on me because I did not notice that soon I, the hunter, had become the hunted. When a young female voice said in my ear one evening, "Why yah been sneakin' around here, mon?" I nearly jumped out of my hide and turned to face her.

Her eyes widened. "B-bruddah, is dat...? Ha! I knew it!" She stood a head shorter than me, and the gaze under her tuft of red hair was shocked and hopeful. Before I could escape back to the safety of the sea and the islands, Hel'caite yelled, "Ma! Da! Come quick, I told yah I seen him!" Fear like a suffocating wave of water washed over me as heads poked out of every window and doorway. Two tall figures ran out of a nearby shelter and over to their daughter, who was once more staring at me with a bemused look on her face.

Loa Geres'tek, the Tortoise, seemed to slow time itself as everyone stood and blinked at me and at each other. Then the woman who would become my second mother cried, "Samedi be praised!" She picked me up in her arms and crushed me to her full chest. Her husband placed a hand on her shoulder, his eyes somewhat narrow and skeptical. "He has returned to us. Hel wuz right, loa bless yah mah daughtah," said the woman. I opened my mouth but my weak plea was drowned out as it seemed suddenly that all of Sen'jin had burst to life around me.

Trolls streamed out of their huts. Torches were lit and tossed into the central bonfire, whose flames soon stretched high and wide, casting tall shadows in every direction. Loud drums began to beat from somewhere. There were whistles and yelps and voices raised in a chant-like song. Before I knew it I was lifted off my feet and tossed upon the shoulders of the crowd, thrust up and down in time with the rhythmic music.

"Ayya! Ayya!" "Kazlin!" "Back to dah world of dah livin'!" "Eyo, Kazlin!" "Praise dah loa!" The hands and voices caressed me as I too began to laugh, caught up in the rush of the moment. "Kaz-lin! Kaz-lin!" The crowd whirled me about until finally I was set down dizzy in front of a commanding figure in the center of the commotion. I looked up hesitantly at the imposing rush'kah mask of Master Gadrin for the first time. "An' so yah return tah us from tha sea," he scrutinized me with shadowed eyes, grumbling. My heart stopped beating in my chest. Then his voice boomed. "Conqueror of Samedi! Chosen of Agwe! Kazlin!" He thrust his hands in the air and roared.

The cheers began again, and as my eyes scanned the crowd they fell on little Hel'caite and her mother and father. The girl, bouncing on the balls of her feet with her hand clasped in front of her, could barely contain her joy. Her mother and father smiled benignly, thankful tears on their blue-skinned cheeks, their arms tight around each other. In those moments of overpowering acceptance my old name fell from memory, and I became Kazlin of Sen'jin Village.

* * * * *

Months passed with my new family, and I eventually learned that the real Kazlin, who shared the same age and bared a close resemblance to me, had disappeared one summer afternoon while fishing along the coast with his sister. Hel said that a band of makura crab-men had attacked them both and dragged Kazlin into the ocean when he tried to fight them off. Just eleven years old at the time, Hel had been devastated by the incident.

Two years had passed when I was discovered on the very anniversary of Kazlin's disappearance. Whether the Darkspear truly believed I was the lost boy returned from the sea or whether they were simply willing to adopt the story for the sake of Hel and her family, and my own, I do not know. But I can say that I was never treated as anything but a full-fledged member of the tribe. To this day I am Kazlin in mind, body, and spirit.


	5. Chapter 5

ALLIES AND ENEMIES

I found life among the Darkspear not so different from life on my home island, as far as I could remember. There were the usual council fires and coming-of-age rituals and seasonal ceremonies. The trolls in Sen'jin fought just as hard to gain power over their friends and foes, though their tactics were tempered some due to the demands of Thrall and his Horde. Cannibalism and troll sacrifice, for instance, had been forbidden.

While I had been cut off from other trolls for many years, the memory of tribal custom soon returned to me — it is hard to forget thousands of years of instinct — and I settled into a natural cycle of laboring for the good of the many. I hunted. I fished and helped build huts. I served on guard duty and gathered ingredients for the potions and powders made by our witchdoctors.

There was no school in Sen'jin. Our education came from handed-down stories and hands-on skills training. Like the other trolls in the village I would go to Master Gadrin's hut each day to hear his sermons on honor, retribution, voodoo, and the like. He received all with the warmth of a father. When he asked to speak with me alone, it seemed as though we were renewing an old friendship. He assured me that he was at my disposal, asked me how life with my family was, and sent me away with a small totem of Loa Aya'taa, the Fate Spinner, to watch over me.

Soon I also encountered Vol'jin, son of Sen'jin, fallen leader of the Darkspear and the one after which our village was named. I found Vol'jin on the sparring grounds to the north, where he was instructing young trolls in the ways of war. Each of the trolls had a short hunting bow carved from the horns of raptors. Tuskers of the tribe were taught to use these bows from the time they were able to lift one. It is for this reason that trolls make such deadly hunters, as we rarely miss our mark.

This was my first meeting with Vol'jin, and he scrutinized me closely, his brow heavy and his bearing authoritative and fearsome. I had heard he was a powerful practitioner of voodoo as well as a deadly predator; rumor told that he was in fact a Shadow Hunter, one of the few remaining, steeped in the darker aspects of the spirit world. He wielded a double-bladed sword similar to what the elves call a moon glaive, and many was the time I found its sharp edge at my throat — both as a young adult and later as a full-grown troll.

Where Master Gadrin had seemed like the ocean, inviting, a joy to be on with boat and oar, Vol'jin was a mountain. He was foreboding, unscalable, hard. The truth is that I did not like him from the start. Vol'jin was the one who led me and a group of tribe members on a hunting party to the biggest of the Echo Isles. Here we killed the upstart witchdoctor Zalazane, leader of the exiled trolls I had seen before, and freed his hexed slaves. The fighting was vicious and wonderful.

Among the rescued trolls was a warrior of my own age called Tashtego. Larger and fiercer in battle than any troll I had seen before, he reminds me now of a tribal brother I would have many years later named Sooja. Tashtego had been under Zalazane's control for so long that he had forgotten where he was from, but his thick accent told that he was not Darkspear.

It did not matter. Our tribe took him in, and he and I became fast friends, often sharing nightly guard watches and standing side by side as we slaughtered Kolkar centaurs in the canyons surrounding our lands. I was "Baas" to him and he was "Tego" to me, and we made a dangerous team, crude but effective, while it lasted.

* * * * *

There was one more person who would become a key link in my chain of friends (not including my sister, Hel, who would join us on some adventures but who was still rather young). I had secretly lusted for Bendi since the day I moved into the hut next to hers with my new family. To me, she was a jungle princess, brave and bold, with long black hair lathered over her shoulders in braids. We were too young to know the courting ways described in _The Knot of Love_, but our hot glances were enough.

On the night of the festival in honor of Loa Ezili, the goddess of beauty and ideal dreams, we lined up opposite one another, knowing each other's thoughts. The drums began, distant and slow at first, then joined by the howl of conch horns and the clang of bells. We moved in time to the rhythm, stomping and twirling. Other couples ran into each other trying to adjust to the mounting beat, but not us. The music swelled, crested, and crashed like a huge wave as we gyrated, moving closer until our faces were inches apart.

She dug her hands in to mine as the din grew louder, the dancing more frenetic. Our hands explored every curve of each other. Her tusks scraped mine countless times. I noticed it, smelled it. We guided each other's bodies to the music, eyes locked, drowning out the rest of the world. We were as one, heads close and breathing. She grinned freely. I felt her heart thumping loudly. Mine was too.

We moved slowly beyond the edge of the circle without knowing it. Or perhaps we did. A nearby hut provided all the shelter we needed. Without hesitation, she jumped at me, arms wrapping around my neck, wanting it all. Our sweaty bodies pressed together, adrenaline pumping. Our tusks met again. Her lips parted expectantly as our mouths came together.

I heard the snap of the lash before I felt its bite. I turned and in my lustful stupor it seemed the shadow of the hut we stood inside rose up and surrounded us. It took on a black form, at least ten feet tall, and there were more stinging blows from the whip-like tendrils growing out of the shape. The thing seemed to rise up over us and around us. It was too tall, fifteen then twenty feet, and we were screaming as it beat both of us, opening raw wounds on our shoulders and backs and arms.

There was no head, not really. Just two spots floating high in the air, black but also red, like the eyes of a wolf hunting under the blood moon. I knew those eyes. They belonged to Vol'jin. Only later did I find out that Bendi was his blood-kin, a distant cousin, but enough to raise the Shadow Hunter's ire at our brazenness. I do not know how we escaped his wrath. I woke up in my own bed the next day, still wearing the scars he had put there.

Two days later Bendi, Tashtego, and I ran off together to the Valley of Trials. We were young and angry, determined that we would follow our own path and prove our worth to Vol'jin and anyone else who turned their eyes down on us. We would become mighty headhunters and hexers, returning to Sen'jin when our names were feared throughout Kalimdor. But had we helped ourselves or only made matters worse?


	6. Chapter 6

MASTER OF THE HUNT

I have learned a saying in my travels, "We are the choices that we make, for good or ill." Choices define us. Choices become us. And while it is not in my nature to regret, looking back, I realize now that the choice Bendi, Tashtego, and I made to leave Sen'jin created only hardship and sorrow.

Our plan to join the ranks of the Horde army fell apart soon after we arrived in the Valley of Trails. It was not the training that we found impossible — in fact we were successful in a number of hard-fought tasks for the war masters there — rather it was the company we were forced to keep, and our own intolerance.

First there were orcs, lots of them, and though they were bloodthirsty and furious in battle, we could not take their haughtiness. Grom Hellscream this. Horde that. Never a mention of us trolls. The Darkspear lived in a meager village while these orc outsiders had a capital city! And then they would speak to us of honor...ha! They could leave their lectures for the young rosy-eyed fools. I have always agreed with what Zul'jin said about war: It is not about honor but about conquest and survival, by any means necessary.

Worse yet we met in the Valley of Trails the so-called forsaken that Thrall had allied himself with in his hour of need. How Vol'jin, our leader, could consent to such a thing was beyond my understanding, and it only fueled the fiery feelings I had toward him already. These walking corpses were despicable things, undead minions, consorts of demons. How could we trust them when they were only one step removed from our human enemies? I will never be convinced that they will not one day visit misery on us all.

I have never taken issue with the formidable bull-men known as tauren, though I believe they are far too slow to anger. If only they would embrace their bestial nature! I came to know some of them during our time in the Valley of Trails, and I grew to admire their spiritual strength. But these tentative friendships were not enough to hold us there.

And so, a few short weeks after our arrival we again moved on, this time taking the skills we had honed and setting out for the Barrens, a band of experienced — or so we thought — troll mercenaries. We found no shortage of work in the areas around the Crossroads, where we did everything from thin out the lion prides to recover stolen silver from a band of crafty raptors. We even had the pleasure of slaying a coven of black orcs high up on Dreadmist Peak. (We gave our patrons a discount on this job.)

Our purses grew heavier, and while we were far from rich, at least our gear was good quality and we ate well. Soon our names were known in the Barrens and we began to receive requests from Ratchet, Camp Taurajo, and Honor's Stand. In the foothills of the Stonetalon Mountains we discovered the troll outpost of Malaka'jin. This quickly became a new base camp for us, from which we reached out to Sun Rock Retreat. It wasn't long until we found new customers there as well, and new dangers.

* * * * *

The full account of what happened next can be found elsewhere in the archives of the Hand of Itzul. [Author's Note: I'll be posting the full story separately because it is quite long in itself.] Below I include my first account of the incident in which I lost my two closest friends, scrawled on a piece of weathered parchment not long after the day it happened.

_How could we not have seen that we were doomed? Why would an elf be seeking aid in Sun Rock, a Horde camp? And why would she wish the death of her own kind? Tashtego, damn his thick skull, did not care and had not asked. _

_But he cannot be blamed. It was my place to lead. Why did I not say something to stop the quest before it started? When I sought the elf for answers, she had already vanished from the village. I should have known this was wrong...in my spirit-soul I DID know! But my arrogance told me that we could not be tricked, that we could outwit any trap laid for us._

_Tcha! Now Tashtego is dead and Bendi is missing. For three days I have waited for her here at the Crossroads, our agreed-upon meeting point should a job go wrong. But she has not come. With the death of our longtime friend I cannot believe that anything would keep her away. I must assume that she too is dead._

_Loa curse me! It is my fault they are gone. I killed them both as surely as if I had led them through the black caves of Avaki and into the waiting jaws of Khut'we the Hungerer!_

_And now I have another fear. Something is chasing me, a vile underling of the demon-god we discovered in Stonetalon Peak, a wraithlike brother of the wolfhounds that I escaped in the forest. I hear ghostly howling in my sleep, and during the day I smell ruin on the wind. The humming in my ears has lessened but is still there. At times it seems to speak words. Tashtego screaming at us to flee. Bendi crying my name. The demon Hunt Master taunting me. Or is it just my imagination?_

_The rum helps to quiet the voices._

_I do not know how long I can wait here. I feel thin, lost. I cannot return to Sen'jin, not like this, not without Bendi and Tashtego. I will not face Vol'jin and our families. _

_No, I must go back to Sun Rock. I will return to Stonetalon Peak. I will find the Hunt Master and his den. And if the loa decide that I should fall, it will be a shameless death. Ayya, let the gods mold my fate. I am theirs to command. Help me avenge my fallen friends or strike me down!_

_I will go back soon, once the voices quiet. But first there is more rum..._


End file.
